Related papers: New Perspectives on Axion Misalignment Mechanism
Constraints on inflationary scenarios and isocurvature perturbations have excluded the simplest and most generic models of dark matter based on QCD axions. Considering non-minimal kinetic couplings of scalar fields to gravity substantially…
We study the cosmological evolution of a light QCD axion and identify the parameter space to obtain the correct relic dark matter abundance. The axion potential is flattened at the origin, corresponding to the only minimum, while it is…
The simplest explanation for early time acceleration (inflation) and the late time acceleration indicated by recent data is that they have a common origin. We investigate another generic cosmological implication of this possiblity, that the…
A coherent field over the entire universe is an attractive picture in studying the dark sector of the universe. The misalignment mechanism, which relies on inflation to achieve homogeneousness of the field, is a popular mechanism for…
We propose a new mechanism to suppress the axion isocurvature perturbation, while producing the right amount of axion dark matter, within the framework of supersymmetric axion models with the axion scale induced by supersymmetry breaking.…
General consistency requirements of Quantum Gravity demand the existence of one axion per Yang-Mills group. In this work, we consider theories with dark Yang-Mills sectors and investigate general phenomenological implications of these…
The axion is a light pseudoscalar particle postulated to solve issues with the Standard Model, including the strong CP problem and the origin of dark matter. In recent years, there has been remarkable progress in the physics of axions in…
We show that the initial misalignment angle of the QCD axion (or axion-like particles) can be set very close to $\pi$, if the QCD axion has a mixing with another heavy axion which induces the phase shift $\approx \pi$ after inflation. In…
We examine in the context of supersymmetric models whether the usual cosmological upper bound on the axion decay constant can be relaxed by assuming a period of stronger QCD in the early universe. By evaluating the axion potential in the…
We show that the baryon asymmetry of the Universe cannot be explained by a large initial value before inflation because it inevitably predicts correlated baryon isocurvature perturbations that are already excluded by cosmic microwave…
We determine the possible trajectories the universe may have followed in the QCD phase diagram during the QCD epoch. We focus on the roles of chiral symmetry breaking and pion condensation under high imbalances in lepton asymmetry. Adopting…
We study the possibility of producing axion dark matter (DM) via misalignment mechanisms in a non-standard cosmological era dominated by ultra-light primordial black holes (PBH). While the effect of PBH domination on the production of axion…
We study cosmological effects of explicit Peccei-Quinn breaking on the QCD axion dark matter. We find that the axion abundance decreases or increases significantly depending on the initial position, even for a tiny Peccei-Quinn breaking…
A cold relic axion condensate resulting from vacuum misalignment in the early universe oscillates with a frequency \sim m_a, where m_a is the axion mass. We summarize how the properties of photons propagating in such a medium are modified.…
Cosmological evolution of axion field in the early universe might be significantly affected by a thermal friction induced by the axion coupling to thermalized hidden sector. We examine the effects of such a thermal friction on axion dark…
We discuss a new mechanism for baryogenesis, in which the baryon asymmetry is generated by the lightest particle in another sector, for example the supersymmetric particle (LSP), decaying to quarks via baryonic-number-violating…
We calculate the baryon asymmetry of the Universe which would arise during a first order electroweak phase transition due to minimal standard model processes. It agrees in sign and magnitude with the observed baryonic excess, for resonable…
Scalar fields in the minimal supersymmetric standard model may have large field values during inflation. Because of approximate global symmetry, it is plausible that the phase directions of them are nearly massless during inflation and…
The post-inflationary Peccei-Quinn symmetry-breaking scenario provides a rich theoretical framework to study axion dark matter production through the dynamics oftopological defects. Accurate predictions for the axion abundance require a…
We explore whether the axion which solves the strong CP problem can naturally be much lighter than the canonical QCD axion. The $Z_\mathcal{N}$ symmetry proposed by Hook, with $\mathcal{N}$ mirror and degenerate worlds coexisting in Nature…